Eight years after the fall of the Taliban,
targeted violence against women in Afghanistan
is back at an alarming level.
Women of all ages are enduring
brutal physical and sexual abuse in their own homes.
A few lucky ones find their way
to one of only six shelters in the country.
We visited one of them.
It's breakfast time
for the residents of the only shelter
for battered women and girls
in Herat, Afghanistan.
18 women and 10 children live here.
Each of their stories is unique,
but they have all suffered abuse at the hands of
their husbands, fathers, brothers, and even mothers-in-law.
"He tried to kill me with electric shock.
My brother is his brother-in-law
and they are all in this together."
This is a story about Sosan
who at age 35 is a mother of seven.
Her husband and his family tried to
kill her more than once
because they suspected
that she was having an affair.
The United Nations says
over 87 percent of all Afghan women
suffer from domestic abuse,
making Afghanistan
one of the most dangerous places
in the world to be a woman.
"They injected me with poison
and I had such reaction
that my hands were numb
and I nearly died.
There are police reports of all of this.
They brought the mullah to say prayers
for my passing away
and they even obtained my death certificate."
Sosan's ex-husband admits
that he, his brother, and their 15-year-old son
tried to electrocute her—
a horrific fact he does not deny.
"I tortured her—with my son."
Sosan escaped with her three youngest children
and came to the shelter.
This kind of abuse and violence against Afghan women
has roots in almost three decades of conflict
in this vast and arid land in Central Asia.
After the Soviet occupation,
a long and brutal civil war ensued.
Fueled by opium money,
groups of Afghan Islamic fighters of mujahideen
fought for power, culminating in the Taliban,
finally taking control of most of the country by 1996.
The next five years were marked by extreme Islamic policies,
especially when it came to women and their position in the society.
Today, eight years later,
mistreatment of women continues.
"In Afghanistan,
what we see in the last year especially
is a rise in the return of public acceptance of
violence against women to the degree
where it was under the Taliban."
Wenny Kusuma from
the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in Afghanistan.
"What we are seeing
is a targeted premeditated approach
to intimidation, fear, waging intimidation,
and fear against the public at large
and women in particular."
What's different now
is that women and their families
are starting to speak out about domestic violence—
long a taboo subject—
many Afghan women used to feel
suicide was the only way out.
"I tend to their wounds.
I also dispense medication if needed."
The shelter's nurse Nargis [Spelling unknown]
helps the lucky ones that survive and make it here.
"Women who come here
sometimes suffer from burn wounds
because they try to commit suicide
by putting themselves on fire."
Afghan women and girls are married at a young age—
often against their own will.
Many run away
and some find refuge at shelters like this one.
Here, through role play,
they are taught
that they actually do have a say
in who they will marry and when.
"Are you going to force me to marry him?
I don't love him!"
"You must!"
"I will pay 7 million afghanis."
"I don't care about his money.
I don't want to live with somebody like him
for the rest of my life.
I will not marry this man."
Sosan, who also married in her teenage years,
says that she suffered years of physical abuse
only because she's a woman.
"The brutalities I have endured
not just once but hundreds of times.
It's like fire burning inside my chest.
I have spent half of my life in abuse.
I wanted to kill myself."
Now Sosan is divorced,
but she says her husband owes her money.
Today, the shelter's legal counselor will mediate
between Sosan and her husband.
During the session,
Sosan makes a case for receiving money
for land that rightfully belongs to her.
"He ought to pay me for the 18 years
that I slaved at his house.
Was I just a slave to him?"
Because her husband was poor,
Sosan bought the land they lived on
from her own father with the money
that she earned working as a seamstress.
"Yes, she earned the money,
but I worked on the land.
It was my hard labor."
With no woman in the house
and left to care for their four older sons,
Sosan's ex-husband is reconsidering their divorce.
"I forgive her
since she didn't have any relations with other men
or acted in a way that won't make the family look bad.
I'm grateful to her.
I want her to come and be with her kids.
That's what I want.
I don't want my kids to be without their mother.
If I take another wife,
she will never be the mother to her kids."
"Even though my husband divorced me,
my brothers were going to kill me
for being divorced
for soiling their name and their honor.
If this place weren't here,
where would we have gone?"
"It is a place for shelter-less women,
for women face at risk,
and for women who don't have anyone."
Suraya Pakzad, the executive director of
the Voice of Women Organization,
recognized the need for a safe haven
in her hometown of Herat a few years ago.
"Because women ran away from domestic violence,
ran away from forced and child marriages,
or came to the shelter."
Hers is just one of six UNIFEM
supported shelters in Afghanistan.
Here, women like Sosan learn skills,
such as sewing and weaving.
Most importantly,
they are given the opportunity
to learn, to read and write
—many for the first time in their lives.
"Nowhere else in the world,
have I personally encountered
such a compelling need
for basic social services."
Kusuma says it's a sign of progress
that even a few shelters for battered women
have opened in recent years,
but it still takes a lot of courage to run one.
"When I receive a dead threats,
I stop coming to the office.
I work two, three days at home
just to pretend that I'm not in the city."
"In no other place in the world,
does serving as a women's human rights defender
place you at greater risk."
Shelters like this one are criticized as anti-Islamic
because disputes in the traditional Afghan society
are mediated within the family
with the help of tribal elders.
It is taboo for women to seek justice outside.
"It's not just shelters.
It's a woman's specific space,
an activity that is not in the home.
Typically, that places women at risk of
being accused of prostitution,
being accused of immoral behavior."
"His objective is to kill me.
That is why he wants me back."
As much as the shelter wants women to return
to their parents or male members of their families,
Sosan won't consider going back.
"There is no way that I want to go there.
He tortured me with electric shock.
It was God that gave me a second chance to live.
My feet are finally healed.
Look at them. He put two exposed wires to kill me."
Since living without a man
is not acceptable in the Afghan society,
it has been suggested
that Sosan should reconcile
and live together with her oldest son—
the same son who took part in the attempt to kill her.
Because Sosan refuses to return to her son or husband,
she is losing custody of her seven-year-old boy.
He is forced to go and live with his father
as mandated by Afghan tradition.
"His father is cruel, violent, and unloving.
So, he kept crying, 'God, help me!
I won't go and live with my father.'"
"As far as you're addressing
issues of custody and the rights of parents,
we do have to deal with laws
that have uneven and unfair impact
on women and their rights as, in this case, mothers."
But there are encouraging signs of improvement.
The president of Afghanistan recently signed
a groundbreaking decree
criminalizing violence against women.
As a result of the shelter's mediation,
Sosan received the equivalent of
ten thousand U.S. dollars for the disputed land.
But since her father disowned her
and with no other family member to live with,
she can't use the money to rent a house
and live with her two young daughters,
who are allowed to stay with her.
"I can't leave the shelter.
I can't go anywhere.
The only way for me to leave the shelter is to marry again.
I have half of my life left.
I just want to live the rest of my life
for me on my terms.
This is a basic human right."
Since filming this story,
Sosan has married another man.
But her leaving the shelter comes at a terrible price.
She was forced to give up her daughters.
They now live with her ex-husband.
That's all for this edition of 21st century.
I'm Daljit Dhaliwal.
We will see you next time.
Until then, goodbye.
21st Century
a production of United Nations Television Department of Public Information